Crammed with architectural landmarks which have stood for hundreds of years, the slender alleyways of Old Cairo are a portal to the earliest days of the Egyptian capital. The historic quarter has impressed numerous artists and writers over the years, together with Egyptian sisters Aya and Mounaz Abdelraouf.
“We felt like we were living at a different time. It was as if the world had stood still,” Aya Abdelraouf recalled of their go to, which was greater than a decade in the past.
Equally charming was the craftsmanship the pair encountered there, the place brass artisans have handed their abilities down from one technology to the subsequent, to create ornate lamps, jewellery and tableware.
It was the inspiration behind their luxurious model Okhtein — Arabic for 2 sisters — which blends Egypt’s craftsmanship and heritage into distinctive purse design.
In a few of their signature collections, the bag’s physique is crafted from engraved or stripped brass, which is paired with different supplies, like leather-based. “Brass is always the main element. That’s why our bags are like collectibles,” Mounaz Abdelraouf stated.
Many of their luggage function a palmette design — a fan-shaped leaf of a palm tree. It’s impressed by one they noticed in the previous metropolis, on a wall behind the Gothic-style facade of the Madrasa of Ibn Qalawun, a spiritual faculty and mausoleum courting again to the 13th century.
Historically, palmette motifs “were used as stoppers (signifying a pause or used as a divider) in poetry and in the Quran,” Aya Abdelraouf added.
Okhtein has received followers round the world, with Beyoncé, Gigi Hadid and Emma Watson amongst the celebrities noticed carrying the model’s luggage.
The model’s designs goal to replicate the nation’s layered historical past and cultural intersections by way of delicate references. “It’s not a pyramid-shaped bag staring you in the face,” stated Aya Abdelraouf.
“Egypt is not just (ancient) Egypt,” Mounaz Abdelraouf added. “It’s a North African country, it’s a Middle Eastern country, it’s an Arab country, it’s a Coptic country, it’s a Muslim country.”
In addition to its shops in Cairo, Dubai and Riyadh, Okhtein lately opened a boutique inside the Grand Egyptian Museum, close to the pyramids of Giza. It is one in every of the world’s largest museums dedicated to a single civilization.
Designed by architect Walid Zeidan, the retailer’s structure and the positioning of its show cupboards is impressed by the route taken by pharaohs in “feluccas” — wood boats with a triangular sail — alongside the winding path of the Nile River in historic occasions.
The museum “holds a glimpse of what Egypt has to offer in terms of civilization. So, to be part of this glimpse is just insane. To be right in front of the statue of Ramses (Ramesses II) is very humbling,” Mounaz Abdelraouf stated.
She sees their outpost as providing sightseers a possibility to personal a chunk of contemporary Egyptian tradition. “All these visitors, tourists coming in and out, they get to take a piece of Egypt home,” she added.
Since its launch in 2014, the label has grown to incorporate a positive jewellery line and equipment, and now works with worldwide artisans on its handbags, from embroidery work created in India to closing panels made in Italy. The duo’s youthful brother oversees the model’s operations and development.
Fashion runs deep in the household. Long earlier than Okhtein was born, Aya and Mounaz Abdelraouf’s grandfather owned a material retailer and imported textiles from round the world. His enterprise typically took him and his spouse to trend capitals equivalent to Paris and Milan.
“Our grandmother was very stylish; she looked like a model,” Aya Abdelraouf recalled. “We would spend hours in her closet. It felt like stepping into a vintage world before vintage was even a thing.”
She nurtured their love of trend and launched them to leather-based, which might later turn out to be one in every of the defining supplies in Okhtein’s designs. Today, the sisters are going by way of her images to design a group for winter 2027, to honor her reminiscence and rejoice her model.
As with all their creations, they are going to be drawing on the previous to create one thing distinctive.
“If you’re wearing an Okhtein piece, it’s actually the piece that found you — not the other way around,” Aya Abdelraouf stated. “It’s the same feeling you get when you thrift a one-of-a-kind piece.”